Akane Sasu
by Amanozako-hime
Summary: Random AkaKuro one-shots based on the songs from T.Swift's album, Red.


**xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**

 **SAD BEAUTIFUL TRAGIC**

 **xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**

" _ **What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair..."**_

 **xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**

"Akashi-kun," a female voice calls out to him and he turns around, coming face to face with Kuroko's mother. Looking at her now, Akashi notes that he and the phantom were similar in the way that they both inherited their physical attributes from their mothers and their aura from their father. Kuroko Tetsuna has the same powder blue hair and eyes, though hers were red-rimmed and puffy from crying for God knows how long. He'd only spoken to her once and briefly at that, when she'd greeted him and the rest of the _Kiseki_ at the door. Akashi had given her his condolences, then, and she'd only nodded at him wordlessly with a look in her eyes that Akashi cannot discern at the time.

"Kuroko-san," he replies with a polite bow, a little surprised at being addressed by his name. The older woman manages to give him a shaky smile, and that was when he noticed the envelopes that she was holding in her hand.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?"

Again, Akashi was taken by surprised, but he nodded nonetheless, and he followed Kuroko's mother upstairs to Kuroko's room. They'd passed by the rest of his friends and he saw Midorima giving him a questioning glance, but all he can give as a reply at the moment was a slight shrug of his shoulders as he himself has no idea on what Kuroko's mother wants from him.

Kuroko's room looked just like the last time Akashi had visited it, which was only last week. His bed still has the same blue and white bedsheets, a book peeking out from under the pillow. His study desk was full of notebooks and papers, looking like a hurricane had passed over it. Under the table was a worn basketball, its leather smooth from overuse. Kuroko's mother settled on the foot of her son's bed, while Akashi remained standing as he continued to look around the room, as if the owner of the room was just hiding in there somewhere and that all of this is just a joke.

A cruel, cruel joke.

"Of all his friends, Tetsuya had talked about you the most," Kuroko's mother said, and Akashi fixes his eyes on her, his face kept carefully blank as she continued to speak. "Even before you talked to him that night when he was practicing with Aomine-kun in that other gym, he had already noticed you. I guess, being the vice-captain of the basketball club in your first year is quite an accomplishment… He was envious of you, then. I remember him saying that it was unfair how someone who was about the same height as him possess such talent in basketball, while he was practically hopeless at the time. You evoked mixed feelings from him – he envied you yet he seemed to draw inspiration from you. Then you gave him hope, a chance to play on the same court as you… Without you, Tetsuya would have never reached his dreams of being a basketball player, because that night you found him, he had already given up on his dreams…"

Akashi's eyes widened in surprise. To think that Kuroko's mother knew this much… He cleared his throat. "You give me too much credit, Kuroko-san. Even if I was not there, surely Kuroko would have –"

"No, he wouldn't have, Akashi-kun. That night, he was already thinking of quitting the basketball club, had you not appeared and gave him a second chance."

"But still –"

Kuroko's mother shook her head. "I am only saying what Tetsuya had told me, and for him, he owes everything to you." Akashi followed her gaze to where it rested on Seirin's photo during the Winter Cup, where they had defeated Rakuzan. In that photo, Kuroko can be seen smiling, which rarely happens. "You should have seen how happy he was when he came home that night. I knew then and there that his team had won the tournament, but that was not the first thing that he told me. Do you know what it is, Akashi-kun?"

Even though he had a clue of what Kuroko had said back then, the redhead replied with a slight shake of his head.

"Tetsuya hugged me and told me that 'he' is back," Kuroko's mother said with a smile that resembled that of her son. "'Akashi-kun is back, Mother, he is back.' That's the first thing he told me when he came home. To him, the trophy is just second to you getting your old self back. He won it, for you."

As the older woman talked, Akashi swallowed the painful lump in his throat and willed himself not to cry. At least not when someone is looking, by the way.

It seems that Kuroko's mother had reached her limit as well. Already fresh tears were gathering in her eyes and she wiped them with the back of her hand. She held out the envelope in her hand, and when Akashi took them, she caught his hand in hers and gave it a small squeeze before pressing a small key into his palm. "It's the key to his drawer. I don't mean to add to your sorrow but I think you have to see it." She stood up and paused in front of the opened door. "Take your time, Akashi-kun," was all she said and then she was gone, leaving Akashi alone in Kuroko's vacant room.

He stood there rooted to the spot for several minutes before he walked toward the desk and pulled out the chair, creaking as he sat down on it. He imagined it making the same sound every night when Kuroko sits down in front of his desk to study and do his homework. He inserted the key in the slot but paused as he stared at the envelope on the desk before him. He thought that perhaps he ought to read it first before going through the content of his drawer. He had a feeling that what the letter contains might give him a clue about what he might find inside.

The envelope looked old, its paper slightly yellowed with age. There was a small fold on one end, as if it was used as a bookmark or something. With trembling hands, he slowly peeled off the flap, the glue holding them together now brittle and partially gone with age. Inside he found several folded pages, but what caught his attention was the characters of his own name written in Kuroko's handwriting on the topmost fold.

He suddenly found it hard to breathe.

 _Akashi-kun,_

 _By the time you are reading this – if you even took the time to read this – I would have already left the team and resigned from the basketball club as well._

 _I left because I was weak and powerless to do anything about it, and it hurt whenever I see what you and the rest of our friends had become. Even though you told me that it was still you, that you are still Akashi Seijuurou, I'm afraid that I am not convinced._

 _You have changed, Akashi-kun._

 _I no longer knew you, or them. You all have changed, and me being a coward just ran away for fear of getting hurt._

 _Perhaps it was selfishness on my part, I don't know how you see it either, but I guess I left because I don't want to let out memories together to be tarnished._

 _Do you still remember how happy we were back then, Akashi-kun?_

"I remember them, Tetsuya," he says out loud in answer to the written question, and he knew that this letter had been made when Kuroko was still in middle school, after the Awakening of the _Kiseki no Sedai_ , but for some reason the boy had never gotten around to sending it.

 _Why_?

He read the rest of the letter with gritted teeth, and when he finished, he set it down on the desk with shaking hands, taking a moment to calm his breathing as he now looked at the drawer with a newfound fear.

After reading that letter from years ago, questions and doubts and speculations came to his mind, and it seemed that the only thing that can answer and dispel and confirm them lies inside that drawer.

But why was he afraid of opening it?

Surely he, Akashi Seijuurou, can handle the truth?

For the first time, Akashi highly doubted himself and before his courage failed him, he twisted the key and yanked the drawer open.

He didn't realize when he closed his eyes, but when he opened them, he found himself gazing at an assortment of journals and even more envelopes and other knickknacks that Kuroko had stowed away in his drawer. One by one he took them out, recognizing some of them on sight, like the blue and black journal that Kuroko had in middle school, the small basketball keychain he had given the bluenette on a whim during a shopping trip for club supplies, a scratch paper containing formulas in math that he had scrawled down when he was tutoring Kuroko, a list of books he had suggested for reading… And then when he opened a brown envelope, he was greeted by a stack of photographs he didn't even knew existed until he saw them today. He recognized the quality of the photos, and he was certain that it was taken using his digital camera but he never recalled seeing them on file before. But then again, he'd always handed it over to Momoi for documentation, and it seems that the pinkette had hidden all this from him, since she'd been the one to print out everything. Akashi had one flash drive containing all of those photos but it looks like Momoi had deleted all these from his camera's memory card before returning it to him.

Another mystery added to the growing list in his mind.

All of them were photos of him and Kuroko in various moments, though all of them were candid shots taken by Momoi herself. There was one of him and Kuroko discussing something during a break in practice, judging by the towels around their necks and the water bottles in their hands; Kuroko and him eating with the team, Akashi holding out a dish for Kuroko to try; Kuroko and him during the summer festival walking around while eating cotton candy, a smile on Kuroko's lips as he stared at the pink fluff in his captain's hands; Kuroko and him on the beach in Hawaii; Kuroko and him doing all these mundane things but in all of those pictures, Kuroko's eyes looked brighter than usual, his smile a bit more evident, and in every one of those pictures, Kuroko was looking at him and only him.

As he continued to search around Kuroko's things, the more his speculations were confirmed.

 _He couldn't possible be_ – Akashi shook his head. _That would be absurd_ , he countered himself. _How could he even –_

But even as he tried to disprove it to himself even when his heart longed for it to be true, the more it seemed to be validated by the pieces of evidence he uncovered. All those words, the need for secrecy, the conspiracy with Momoi – it all pointed to one thing.

He saved the journals for last, and as he leafed through their pages starting from the oldest one, he came to know what it was like to be one Kuroko Tetsuya – his dreams, his hopes, his frustrations, his deepest hurts, his secrets. He came to know his opinions on other people – his friends, his teachers, even total strangers, and just everything that strikes the bluenette's fancy. It's funny how talkative Kuroko was in his journals knowing that he rarely speaks out loud, but it was here, in the pages of his own book, did Kuroko expressed everything he feels.

Including what he feels for him.

 **xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


End file.
